


There's Got To Be A Better Way

by artificialmac



Series: Brooke Lynn Hytes and Other Residential Neighborhoods in New York [18]
Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Angst, Brooke-centric, Fame, Internal Conflict, Other, Stream of Consciousness, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 18:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20916485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artificialmac/pseuds/artificialmac
Summary: Brooke reflects on her time in the limelight, or rather... laments her time in the limelight.





	There's Got To Be A Better Way

Television was a dangerous place.  
Dangerous if you had a beating heart or a will to live.

There was a reason none of the contestants had a happy childhood.  
They all had to have something wrong with them.  
The viewers needed something to relate to.   
Needed the majestic creatures they saw on their television to have some flaws.

No one could relate to perfection.

And that’s why Brooke didn’t win.  
She is sure of it.  
She should have shown more flaws.  
She should have been more insecure.  
She should have made herself more human.

She had thought

Well

She had thought she had.  
She thought her failures in the acting challenges and the atrocity that was Snatch Game would be enough.

It wasn’t.

She came off as a bitch.   
As a perfection obsessed bitch who could turn looks and heads but not America in her favor.

And that was fine.

She had her cats and her living room and her friends.  
She didn’t need America’s approval.  
Most of the time.

Most of the time she didn’t need it.

But sometimes.  
Like now.

When it was four am and all the comments she could see were telling her she was ice cold and a horrible person.  
She wished she had been less perfect

Wished she had been more like the fan-favorites  
Alaska, Katya, Dela, Vanjie, Valentina, Alyssa, Shangela

Perfectly imperfect as they were, they won America’s hearts  
Turned the ever-fickle favoritism into love and adoration  
Made their perfection their weakness as well as their strength

She had made it her strength and her vice  
She worried too much  
Everyone had told her  
She worried too much  
But cared too little

Worried about the changing tide and if the sun would rise in the same way it had for eons  
Worried about things she could not control  
Worried about everything except the things she could

Maybe she should have worried less  
Maybe she should have worried more

It wouldn’t have helped either way she tries to tell herself  
Tries not to imagine all the ‘what if’ scenarios that plague her closed eyelids

She tries and fails to rebuild herself  
Tries and fails to grow and change

But she can’t help it that she is always on  
Can’t help that this was how she was raise  
How she has always been

And why can’t they love her for it anyway?  
Why can’t people see how hard she is trying?  
Is it too late?  
Is she forever doomed to be this person on a pedestal that can’t bear to look back on how she got so high up in the first place?

And can she live with that if she is?

She knows she can  
Knows she has to  
Knows there is no other way for it to be right now

The sun is rising, and the tide is changing, and Brooke is still too high to notice.


End file.
